


Forever Yours

by Katria_Faeyero



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Scorpius Malfoy, Christmas, Christmas Cards, F/M, Family, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Minor Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Monica Wilkins - Freeform, Obliviation, St Mungo's Hospital, Wendel Wilkins - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28363731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katria_Faeyero/pseuds/Katria_Faeyero
Summary: "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins with much love. I wish you all the happiness in the world. May 1999 bring everything you wish and even more. Forever yours”.Monika had felt the need to answer but she had no way of knowing who had sent her the card with the beautiful wishes. The envelope didn’t even have a stamp. It didn’t even look as if it had passed from the post office as all official stamps were missing. It was as if someone had just dropped it in her mailbox. For reasons unknown, she had kept the card and had decorated it on their Christmas tree. Once the Christmas season was over, she had kept the card in a small box on her bedside table.
Relationships: Mr Granger/Mrs Granger (Harry Potter)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Forever Yours

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone. This is my first work on AO3 though I have written some stories on FFN and while they are all WIP, I'm very proud of them. This is also the first time that I write something in the HP Fandom and I'm quite anxious. A warning before reading the story is that I'm not an english native speaker and though I try to as fluent as possible, I'm bound to make mistakes. I'm also just now learning how to use AO3 so please bare with this amateur writer. 
> 
> This story was just an idea that popped in my mind a few days ago and I had to put down in writing. SO... Voila!

Monica Wilkins received a different Christmas card every year. Every 23rd of December, for the past ten years, she would find in her mailbox a small envelope, an envelope in dark beige and made of expensive thick paper. There was no name of the sender, just the address and the name of the receiver. The envelope would contain a Christmas card, or rather a Christmas themed photograph. On the back of the photograph, there were always dark calligraphic letters, certainly written with quill. The beautiful calligraphic letters formed the words _“To Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins with much love”_.

  
Monica had no idea who sent her those cards but she had never found it in herself to throw them away. The first odd card had been sent to her on December 1998. It had been a card depicting a lone tree in the middle of a snow covered clearing in the middle of a star filled night. There was no moon up above. The words _“It is so beautiful that you two have each other and that you are not alone this Christmas. I wish you to be together for many years to come and to continue loving each other no matter how many Christmases pass. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins with much love. I wish you all the happiness in the world. May 1999 bring everything you wish and even more. Forever yours”_.

Monika had felt the need to answer but she had no way of knowing who had sent her the card with the beautiful wishes. The envelope didn’t even have a stamp. It didn’t even look as if it had passed from the post office as all official stamps were missing. It was as if someone had just dropped it in her mailbox. For reasons unknown, she had kept the card and had decorated it on their Christmas tree. Once the Christmas season was over, she had kept the card in a small box on her bedside table.

  
December 1999 had not been any different. On the 23rd of December, along with her regular mail, she had received the second Christmas card from her anonymous well-wisher. This time, the card depicted a candle, its fire having taken a very warm orange and yellow and red color that reflected upon Monica’s whisky-colored eyes. Golden letters forming the words “Joyeux Noel” framed the card. On the back of the card, the same calligraphic handwriting as the previous card, read _“Life is like a flame. It grows stronger or weaker, anyway the wind blows. Life is warmth and hope and light. Life is worth every struggle that we face. Light a candle for me this year. Its warmth will reach me and bring me light. With all my heart I wish you the Happiest of Christmases. May you always happy. Forever Yours”_. The card found its place on their Christmas tree and once they took down the decorations, the card joined last years’ similar one on her bedside table inside a small box. On Christmas Day, Monica lit a candle and allowed its flame to burn all night long.

  
On December 23 of 2000, Monica Wilkins knew that she was going to find a card by an anonymous person in her mailbox. The card had an angel this time, an angel with golden hair in perfect ringlets and a halo around his head, dressed from head to toe in pure white. The angel was holding small Christmas bells and as Monica looked at the card, she thought she heard bells ringing in her ears. She caressed the beautiful face of the angel and wondered for another year who had bothered to send her a card. She and her husband had no family outside of each other. And their few friends in Australia certainly couldn’t have sent those cards. Monica had discreetly asked once her very few friends and also some acquaintances if they had sent any Christmas cards. The answer was always no.

  
Another year and then another and another and Monica had nine Christmas cards tugged in her bedside table. Every year she was desperately waiting for those cards. They were her small obsession and though her husband had laughed at her as she fussed about the cards and their mysterious sender, she had caught Wendel lingering in front of their tree, eyes fixed on the card many times over the years. Though the general premise of the cards was the same, a beautiful picture of something Christmas related and beautiful wishes full of love for her husband and her and always ending with _“Forever Yours”_ , Monica had noticed that some cards had something more special than others. Some cards were more personal and they became more personal as the years passed.

  
She remembered the card that had arrived on her mailbox in 2005. It was the strangest Christmas card she had ever seen in her life for its context wasn’t something she would have necessarily associated with Christmas. It was the photo of two hands entwinned in front of a decorated Christmas tree. One hand was definitely male with bigger and stronger fingers and the other female, with long elegant fingers and perfectly manicure nails painted a pale pink. They wore matching gold bands on their ring fingers and the woman also had a diamond ring with a very expensive looking cut on the same finger as her wedding band. For some inexplicable reason, both Monica and Wendel had spent much more time than they were comfortable admitting examining the delicate fingers of the female hand. Then, they had spent twice as long reading and rereading the back of the card.

  
_“Life is full of surprises. People surprise you more than anything else and it’s something I have learnt from personal experience. The key is forgiveness and Christmas are the season to forgive and move on and learn to leave all over again. And maybe, just maybe, forgiveness can lead to true and absolute happiness. A happiness that is all consuming and earthshattering. I wish you both the same happiness. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Forever Yours”._

  
Monica had cried over the card that year. Wendel had done everything possible to calm her down but for hours she had cried until there were no more tears left. That empty feeling in her gut, the feeling that told her that something essential was missing from her life, had overwhelmed her senses for hours. That particular card never joined the others on the box. It was put into a frame and was now hanging on a wall in their living room along with other photos, all of them with Monica and Wendel since they had met each other till the present time; always just the two of them and the additional friend now and then. The card held a special place on the wall long after Christmas time had ended.

  
December 2006, it had been Wendel who had first found the card on their mailbox. Monica had been reluctant to see the contents of the card she desperately waited for each year, so she had avoided approaching the mailbox. It was late at night when Wendel had had enough of his wife staring out the window, eyes fixed on the box with uncovered curiosity. He had retrieved the envelope and had taken out the card with almost shaking hands. What he had found inside, had made him gasp and in a matter of seconds the card had been snatched from his hands and Monica had taken hold of it. By the time she decided to turn the card around and read the delicately written wishes, her eyes were misty with unshed tears.

  
_“Christmas is a time of rebirth. The time of new beginnings, of unknown adventures. I don’t know if I will succeed in this new adventure that’s on the way. I have no idea if I am enough. They tell me that I am. I sometimes believe them but truth be told I am terrified. I wish I could share this gift with you. The gift of second chances and rebirth. Merry Christmas Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins. I hope the new year brings everything you wish for. Forever Yours”._

  
When Christmas was over that year, another frame had joined the photos on their wall, beside the one with the entwined hands of the man and the woman.  
It was a belly, just the very pregnant belly of a woman dressed in a very ugly Christmas sweater, red with a reindeer on the front and white snowflakes. A hand, the woman’s hand, was protectively wrapped around her abdomen, her golden ring reflecting the warmth of the embers in the fireplace in front of which the woman stood. The photo was taken from such an angle that only the woman’s belly was visible from the side. No face and nothing else that could indicate they actually knew the young woman sending them the cards.

  
The previous year, they had come to the conclusion that it was either the man or the woman whose hands were visible in the card that was sending them the cards. For some reason they had not lingered on the man much. It was the girl, the young woman that had been their mysterious sender for years now. They were absolutely certain it was her. They had also come to the conclusion that last year she had gotten married and that was why she had sent them the card with the hand holding couple. And this year, she was pregnant, waiting for her first child and for some reason she wanted them to know this information. She needed them to know that she had a husband and a child on the way and a seemingly beautiful life.

  
They had since then concluded that sometime, in the past, they had encountered that woman and they had done something significant to impact her life and make her care for them so much to send them Christmas cards each year.

  
It was after that card, the card of 2006 that Monica started dreaming of a curly haired infant with the biggest caramel-colored eyes she had ever seen. She had always wanted to be a mother. She remembered herself being young and uncaring and dreaming of finding true love and having kids of her own, to dote upon and to read stories and love unconditionally. She had indeed met her soulmate. Wendel was the first and only man she had ever loved and the two of them were so different yet so compatible at the same time. Only beauty could fruit from their love. Yet such perfect love had not led to children.

  
Monica would have given everything to have a child with her husband; a child with her whisky-colored eyes and his wild dark curls. Their child would have been beautiful, well mannered, intelligent, brave and strong. They would have taught them about love and what truly mattered in life. And kindness. Their child would have been the kindest of souls, forgiving and caring and all things good. She remembered making a list of potential names once, many years ago. It had been almost twenty-seven or twenty-six years ago when she had made that list. She had wanted a girl, she remembered but she would have been happy with a boy. She remembered choosing amongst thousands of names and settling on her favorites- names from ancient Greece and Shakespeare.

  
But it wasn’t meant to be. She had never gotten pregnant and they had stopped trying after a while, content with what they already had; each other and their love. Now, seeing the woman’s protruding belly in the picture had made the ache within her abdomen an uncomfortable and constant pain. A pain that had resurfaced her will for motherhood and a pain from which she was suffering every night, as the image of the brown eyed infant became the image of a curly haired toddler and then the image of a grown child with the brightest of smiles and the brightest of minds.

  
On December 2007 the Christmas card that arrived on the morning of the 23rd, was again a photograph, just like the two previous years. It contained exactly what they had expected it would contain. There was a Christmas tree, beautifully decorated with the warmest of colors. A sinful number of presents was underneath the Christmas tree, all wrapped in red and gold and green and silver illustrative paper, with intricate bows of shimmering ribbons. In front of the tree there were cushions of colors similar to those of the presents. On the cushions there was a baby. The baby’s back was turned to the camera but it was quite obvious the baby was wearing a dark green onesie with a white shirt underneath. A shock of white blond curls sat atop its tiny head and they could tell, before even reading the message on the back of the photo that the baby was a boy, no more than eleven years old.

  
_“Named after a constellation, with my eyes and his father’s hair… He is and angel, a true angel. I, the ever rational one, had never believed in angels. But angels indeed exist upon the earth and I have found mine. I desperately hope that sooner rather than later you will find your angel too. With all my love I wish to the both of you Merry Christmas. Forever yours”._

  
By the end of 2007, Wendel also had vivid dreams about a little girl with crazy chestnut curls and bright eyes. And the void, that void which had been present in their lives for the past years, was now achingly painful. The three cards, the photos of the mysteriously unknown woman and her husband and her child were part of their wall of pictures as if they were part of their family. But for all they knew, Monica and Wendel were alone. This whole mysterious Christmas-cards-thing was getting way out of hand and though each year they were waiting for the cards with an almost desperate need, the cards filled them with sadness and more questions and more dreams to last them till the next year and the next card.

  
Looking at the cards and reading the sweet messages on the back gave them a euphoric sense of happiness and peace. Thinking about the cards though, analyzing the images, reading behind the words and the wishes, examining the few visible features of the people depicted again and again…Well, that was torture.

* * *

  
They returned to England ten years after they had left for Australia. They had no idea why they had suddenly decided to abandon the sunny beaches of Australia and return back to the rainy skies of London. One day they were doing what they normally did, working at their dental clinic and then returning home to have a quiet dinner and watch a movie in each other’s embrace. The next day, Monica had refused to go to work and had instead asked Wendel if he wanted to go back to the UK. His immediate response of yes had led to a morning of preparations. Airplane tickets, finding a hotel in London until their old house was ready to be inhabited again, informing their Australian landlord that they were leaving, closing their dental office.

  
The card for 2008 arrived the morning before they were ready to depart from Australia for good. Before leaving their Australian house, they had checked their mailbox one last time and surprise surprise there was the thick beige envelope. And as they looked at the card, which was neither a photo nor a typical card but rather a toddler’s messy drawing, they knew they were making the right choice. When they read the calligraphic words on the back of the drawing, they were absolutely certain that they had to go back to England. For reasons unbeknownst to them, they were making the right choice.

  
The Healers working on their minds for the past ten years, were very pleased indeed.

* * *

  
_“I love you both so much. I want you to know just how much I love you. I wish to spend this Christmas and every other Christmas with you. I want you to see me and learn about my job, about what I do, what I’ve done. I want you to meet my husband, to witness for yourself how happy we make each other. I want you to see my son growing up. I want that so desperately. I need you. Please come home. Forever Yours”._

* * *

  
_Finite Incantatem_  
_Forever Yours_  
_Finite Incantatem_  
_Forever Yours_  
_Finite_  
_Finite_

* * *

  
Monica and Wendel Wilkins arrived at Heathrow Airport in a state of both calmness and eagerness on the 24th of December. It was Christmas Eve and the airport was bustling with people anxious to leave for their Christmas Holidays or tourists who were just about to flood London. The middle-aged couple walked purposefully towards the exit once they had obtained their luggage. They never noticed the peculiarly dressed people who followed them from Australia and into their airplane and now to their temporary place of residence. They fell asleep that night with empty stomachs and a downpour of questions.

  
They woke up on Christmas Day in St. Mungo's Hospital as Helen and Richard Granger.

**Author's Note:**

> There might be an additional second part to this with Hermione and Draco and their son. If and when I expand this, depends on my free time and my ispiration, though I'm almost halfway through writing a second chapter! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
